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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

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John Allman

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New Releases for Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011

Posted Nov 16, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Nov 16, 2011 at 09:06 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Bellflower
Genre: Drama
Directed by: Evan Glodell
Run time: 106 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: It’s rare that a film not only meets, but exceeds, expectations. Even more rare for a film that you go into knowing little to nothing about.

But that’s the best way to approach “Bellflower,” possibly the most remarkable debut by a young director since David Fincher unleashed “Se7en” back in 1995. Fincher was at least known by a growing circle of people who marveled at his music videos, and his distinct style didn’t seem foreign when expanded to feature length.

Evan Glodell, the writer/director/star of “Bellflower,” who also helped create many of the film’s best props, as well as the camera used to capture the thrilling, disorienting, dreamlike fabrics that ultimately fuse together to create a blistering, unabashed masterpiece of cinematic angst and personal transcension, is not a household name. It’s fair to say you haven’t ever heard of anything he’s done. But that’s about to change, big time. This is a director you need to watch.

“Bellflower” is nearly impossible to categorize. It’s a coming of age flick, a romantic comedy, a harrowing portrait of pain and a vision of the apocalypse unlike any put to film before, and it draws inspiration from many films, most notably “The Road Warrior,” Australian director George Miller’s 1981 sequel to “Mad Max.” But nothing here seems cribbed or copied from a familiar source.

Yet there is so much to dissect here, to debate.

One of the central questions in my mind is how much of the film can be taken literally. There’s a moment, a very clear moment, that all the action seems to hinge on, a crossroad from which decisions cannot be retracted, consequences cannot be halted. But that moment is shown to us at least two times, and each time it ends with a wholly different outcome.

Other snippets are shown multiple times, with different outcomes, as if the narrator (if there is one) is trying to reconcile the story even as it’s being told.

There appear to be different POV perspectives on display as well. Some scenes seem to be filtered through the eyes of an unseen character, the edges of his or her vision hazy and dark. Other moments in the movie feel like you’ve been dropped into a dream, and you’re stealing a glimpse at what might transpire, should a character elect to turn their dream into a bloody, nightmarish reality.

What rises up out of this exhilarating soup is the sense that nothing is planned, everything can change and often does, that life allows for mulligans and do-overs even as it extracts a painful toll. Love, above all else, is painful and messy and fearless and fearful and, often, fraught with peril. Simple statements like “I don’t want to hurt you,” taken literally, can prove to be ominous and foreboding, a portent of devastation to come.

In “Bellflower,” people don’t break up. They destroy one another, which if you’re honest, is how it really feels. There is no novocaine to help soothe a heart from the damage inflicted by a breakup. Nor should there be.

Those painful moments help us grow and learn, to mature, to make better choices sometimes and, unfortunately, to lose much of that youthful recklessness that would commend the decision to drive from California to Texas on a first date just because.

I love this movie. It joins a handful of films that I watched multiple times in the days following the first viewing. My obsession has nothing to do with trying to crack the code. I honestly don’t want answers. I’m happy with the various hypotheses and fragments of theorem that my own brain has concocted about what I’ve seen and how I chose to interpret it.

How many movies can you really say that about?

“Bellflower” is special like that. It doesn’t subscribe to any of the normal conventions that we’ve come to expect. It operates in a place above the ether where dreams and reality intermingle, a vast expanse of swirling emotion and clearheaded reason, impacted intermittingly by shards of truth and chunks of wishful thinking that free fall from the clouds.

“Bellflower” feels real. It stings. It sears. It is one of the truest portraits of young love ever captured and one of the bleakest, most harrowing breakups ever chronicled.

Did I mention I love this movie? Here’s hoping you do too.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Some, yes.
Drug use – Yes
Bad Guys/Killers – Love, reckless crazy spontaneous love.
Buy/Rent – Buy it now.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – “Behind the Scenes of Bellflower” featurette; “Medusa Rundown”; outtakes; theatrical trailer; Credits (Easter Egg)
On the Web – http://www.bellflower-themovie.com/

Evil Dead 2: 25th Anniversary Edition (Lionsgate, 84 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): There’s not much left to be said about Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell’s return to the woods in 1987’s exceptional sequel, “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn.” But while few film franchises have endured as many reissues and special editions and collector’s releases, fans still clamor for more “Evil Dead” and this 25th anniversary edition, distributed by Lionsgate, doesn’t disappoint, offering several new Special Features previously unavailable on the 2007 Blu-Ray release. In particular, there are three featurettes, totaling more than two hours, that offer a deeper dive behind the scenes of the making of the film. The featurettes are “Swallowed Souls: The Making of Evil Dead 2,” a 90-minute collection of interviews, footage, etc.; “Cabin Fever: A ‘Fly on the Wall’ Look Behind the Scenes of Evil Dead II,” which offers more home movies from special effects master Greg Nicotero; and “Road to Wadesboro: Revisiting Shooting Locations with Filmmaker Tony Elwood,” which stars the movie’s special effects props master and clocks in at just eight minutes. Worth the triple dip? That depends on your obsession. But from this fan’s perspective, the answer is yes.

Griff the Invisible (Vivendi, 93 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Ryan Kwanten, one of the young stars of HBO’s “True Blood,” continues to pick interesting and edgy side projects when his main job doesn’t require him to be bare-chested as Jason Stackhouse. Here, Kwanten plays a nervous, nebbish, incredibly meek office drone who endures torment at the hands of his co-workers even as he finds release and fulfillment in his imagination, leading a double life as a costumed superhero. His imaginary world comes under duress when Kwanten meets an equally quirky girl that his brother is trying to date. This is not your typical comic book fare. It’s not a cult classic, but it’s definitely an interesting, thought-provoking film worthy of being checked out.

Also Available:

Larry Crowne

Bite Marks

Main Street

Sea Rex 3D

Infernal Affairs

Beginners

My Fair Lady

Farscape: The Complete Series (Full review coming, 2011 Holiday Gift Guide)

West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Edition

Spy Kids: Triple Feature

Being Human: The Complete First Season